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I've already explained that fudged dice are the likely reason why they've 'handled' the encounters. Once I start having to repeat myself, I embrace the value of brevity.Though yes, Hi Welcome would make a good response to some people here.
Could be. Might be the DM changed stats. If you call that fudging, I'd agree with you.
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You do realize that you don't have to use every CR appropriate monster in the bestiary right?
A low magic game can also mean that many of the normal antagonists are replaced with more conventional opposition. Or is having the PCs fight humans and humanoids considered passe these days?
Hell you can even change stat blocks and/or reskin creatures to fill the same role as before but remove some of the more annoying abilities (DR, SR, etc).
Further while I'm not a big fan of it personally the existence of products like d20 Conan do seem to indicate that if you are willing to change some mechanics you can have you level based play in a nice low magic wrapper.
Hell I'd be tempted to completely scrap the magic system as it currently stands and play non-magical classes and have any spellcasting be handled in a CoC ritual manner.
Sure it might not be your vision of D&D but it still satisfies the d20 FRPG craving that some people want.
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I've already explained that fudged dice are the likely reason why they've 'handled' the encounters. Once I start having to repeat myself, I embrace the value of brevity.
As far as I can tell there was no mention of fudged dice before your link to a picture. It seemed like a non-sequitur to many of us reading this thread.
As it is, those that want a "low magic" world will likely want "low magic" monsters to go with it. If you build NPCs using the same rules as PCs, and make things like Dragons truly rare and unique creatures the game can work quite well.
I know if I wanted to do low magic I'd use E6 as my base.
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I LIKE the idea of DR /Magic enemies in a low magic campaign. It makes the DR actually mean something, which honestly it usually doesn't these days. Just up the CR slightly for the enhanced effectiveness.
Besides many people here have said something like "they'd be lucky to get a magic item by X level" which also means that it IS possible and does happen. Low magic items and no magic items are NOT the same thing.
It is more than possible to beat a monster with DR magic even without magic. After all most DR magic creatures have 5 to 10 points. My first level fighter does 2d6+10 when power attacking. Seems to me she'll do damage every time she hits....
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I LIKE the idea of DR /Magic enemies in a low magic campaign. It makes the DR actually mean something, which honestly it usually doesn't these days. Just up the CR slightly for the enhanced effectiveness.
This is true. DR/magic is a lot less painful to deal with than the old DR 20/+4 from 3.0. Low magic is intended to make that +1 short sword a great find, not an impossible find.
I LIKE the idea of DR /Magic enemies in a low magic campaign. It makes the DR actually mean something, which honestly it usually doesn't these days. Just up the CR slightly for the enhanced effectiveness.This is true. DR/magic is a lot less painful to deal with than the old DR 20/+4 from 3.0. Low magic is intended to make that +1 short sword a great find, not an impossible find.
I know we once ran into come critters with DR/Glass at one point in a modern day campaign we were in. Of course we never realized that since they died the moment they arrived thanks to the explosives we had put in the room behind them. The room had a huge bay window facing the monsters, it proved to be most effect shrapnel.
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Because even if you ignore incorporeals, and DR/Magic magic items are required to keep your stats at par. And the equipment dependent classes - the ones that suffer the most from this are the ones that have the hardest time just contributing and not dying to begin with. Something has to close the gap. And this isn't an FPS or any sort of real time game where sufficient player skill can overcome statistical gaps. What else turns a death into a not death, if not fudging dice?
And that's just at the lower levels. Go up some more and you start having to ignore almost every single opponent.
I can hit report post for harassment as often as you can do so.
Humm I have no clue what your talking about Harassment, Really No idea. But anyhow back to the topic
That is not fudging not in the lest. Magic items may be required for a standard style game but not every game is standard. The bestriy has many, many beasties in it, and not every party can handle them. Not every core party can handle them.
Its not Fudging to not use a monster your PC has zero chance of beating. No is it fudging to change monster stats in any style of setting. I change monster stats all the time, in every game I run normally. I don't run a 4 man party ever so even AP I adjust to reflect the party and keep the challenge level correct.
If your gonna restrict things then don't use things you know they can't kill without the items ya restricted. The game works fine with low magic as long as the GM watches what he is doing.
Honestly I have no idea what definition you are using for fudging, but it is not the common one for it.
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I LIKE the idea of DR /Magic enemies in a low magic campaign. It makes the DR actually mean something, which honestly it usually doesn't these days. Just up the CR slightly for the enhanced effectiveness.
Besides many people here have said something like "they'd be lucky to get a magic item by X level" which also means that it IS possible and does happen. Low magic items and no magic items are NOT the same thing.
This was more or less my game. The pc's couldn't buy magic items but they could find them. So they didn't always have magic weapons when dealing with critters that had DR. Which lead to an interesting fight with a werewolf, they couldn't hurt it much and it was mangling them but they grabbed it, pinned it and chocked the werewolf out.
That fight still makes us chuckle
You do realize that you don't have to use every CR appropriate monster in the bestiary right?
A low magic game can also mean that many of the normal antagonists are replaced with more conventional opposition. Or is having the PCs fight humans and humanoids considered passe these days?
Hell you can even change stat blocks and/or reskin creatures to fill the same role as before but remove some of the more annoying abilities (DR, SR, etc).
Here's the thing.
In a coherently designed game, importance and page count are strongly correlated; it will not waste huge amounts of text on things that do not matter, and in general, you can assess what a system emphasizes and values based on how many pages are devoted to it.
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 575 pages long. The spells chapter is 151 pages, more than a quarter of the book. The magic items chapter is 97 pages. If you combine the magic, spells, and magic items chapters, that comes out to 267 pages, almost half the book. And in the bestiary, most monsters are magical creatures of some sort. So, if you're culling back the spells dramatically, and the casting classes (read: most classes) dramatically, and the magical monsters dramatically, and the magic items dramatically... there's not much left.
The game very much assumes you'll have large amounts of magic (be it in item or spell form) and leverage it to solve many problems in a big way on a regular basis, and even goes so far as to parse down other aspects of the game in favor of more magic. Heck, there are only two real nonmagic classes in the game; Cavalier and Fighter. You can count Rogue and Barbarian, but even they get overt supernatural abilities granted to them. The Ranger is a spellcaster that talks to squirrels, the Paladin has a laundry list of magic powers, and everything else is at least a 2/3 spellcaster, from Inquisitor on up to Wizard.
For comparison, the skills chapter is 27 pages long. The combat chapter (which is pretty much the bulk of rules for the conventional melee classes) is 29 pages. These sections are rather anemic because the game very much assumes you'll be shoring these aspects up with lots and lots of magic.
Take healing. The game assumes you'll use magical healing all the time, so the Heal skill is more there as an aside than to see actual use. If you have your one rank in Heal as a class skill with a +1 wisdom modifier, you can take 10 to make your DC15 Heal checks and you're pretty much near the limits of what Heal can do. The difference between a rank amateur and a master surgeon is pretty paltry because the Heal skill is not designed to take center stage.
Alchemy is likewise underdeveloped, with the vast majority of alchemic items becoming completely obsolete past very low levels, regardless of whether there's a whole lot of magic. There aren't higher-end alchemic/nonmagic goods; pretty much everything of any real value is magic.
If you're going low-magic, you're pretty much ripping out half the game and leaving a bleeding husk there to die. You're pretty much left with an underdeveloped husk that amounts to fullattackfullattackfullattack and an anemic skill system.
What the game needs if you want a good low-magic system is a large influx of material that actually assumes nonmagical means will do the heavy lifting. More developed skills, more classes that can actually get stuff done without magic, something like a Tome of Battle martial arts system or Iron Heroes token system to shore up mundane combat. In other words, major surgery.
If a game requires a 50+ page set of additional material to actually become a complete and solid low-magic ruleset, then that system is not good at low-magic. You can devise the 50+ pages in some manner of major surgery, but that's far more work than would be required to just get a more suitable system. Can you have fun playing the bleeding, broken tatters in spite of them? Sure, but you can have fun playing Pass The Stick, the halved system still isn't any good; it's just that system doesn't really matter to all groups. That's fine, but a bad system a group doesn't mind is very different from a solid, complete, balanced, well fleshed-out system.
Further while I'm not a big fan of it personally the existence of products like d20 Conan do seem to indicate that if you are willing to change some mechanics you can have you level based play in a nice low magic wrapper.
This is a conversation about low-magic Pathfinder, not low-magic d20. There are quite a few d20 systems that can serve low-magic fairly well (at least in comparison to 3.5/PF). True20/Blue Rose, Mutants & Masterminds, Conan d20, Iron Heroes.
However, they're not Pathfinder, and once you start performing surgery to splice in elements from those systems, you've stopped talking about Pathfinder.
So... if my group decides to play all fighters and rogues, and also decide to sell every magic item they find, they're not playing Pathfinder?
Hyrum.
So... if my group decides to play all fighters and rogues, and also decide to sell every magic item they find, they're not playing Pathfinder?
Hyrum.
Ya know I ran a group of non casters, fighter, ranger,fighter, fighter/rogue though Savage tide with little issue at all and they were below WBL and I never cheat a single roll.
But I have been told by a few here I couldn't do that
That's because there is only one true way to play the game, after all.But I have been told by a few here I couldn't do that
Yeah and your doing it wrong.
Thanks for the advise guys, and please keep it coming. I'm sure I'm not the only one who could use this kind of advice.
Here's the thing.In a coherently designed game, importance and page count are strongly correlated; it will not waste huge amounts of text on things that do not matter, and in general, you can assess what a system emphasizes and values based on how many pages are devoted to it.
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 575 pages long. The spells chapter is 151 pages, more than a quarter of the book. The magic items chapter is 97 pages. If you combine the magic, spells, and magic items chapters, that comes out to 267 pages, almost half the book. And in the bestiary, most monsters are magical creatures of some sort. So, if you're culling back the spells dramatically, and the casting classes (read: most classes) dramatically, and the magical monsters dramatically, and the magic items dramatically... there's not much left.
The game very much assumes you'll have large amounts of magic (be it in item or spell form) and leverage it to solve many problems in a big way on a regular basis, and even goes so far as to parse down other aspects of the game in favor of more magic.
I think you are getting stuck comparing a commercial product to an obviously houseruled game. There really is nothing preventing a GM from using Pathfinder core in a completely unchanged state in one campaign and excising huge sections of it in another campaign.
There are even coherent reasons for doing so related to ease of learning a new system (I think most people would admit that a percentage of the gaming community likes learning one ruleset and isn't fond of having to learn multiple systems). Further by modifying one core book to suit your purposes you don't actually have to invest money in buying another d20 FRPG that has done the work for you (economics definitely plays a part in people's gaming decision). Sometimes DMs even take on the task because the challenge of morphing D&D into something different is a fun task.
So while the Pathfinder core rules is definitely geared towards high magic high fantasy (or whatever it is that D&D simulates) there is nothing that says "Thou shall play RAW and every attempt to change RAW is the act of a control freak DM!"
Hell I don't even particularly like low magic D&D and if I did want to play D&D in a sword and sorcery mode I'd probably play it in 4e using the intrinsic bonus options from Dark Sun or maybe Warriors & Warlocks (Sword and Sorcery M&M). That doesn't mean that a different DM with different tastes can't kitbash the hell out of Pathfinder and turn it into the type of game his group wants to play whether that's 3.x cranked up to Super Saiyan levels or cranked down to resemble Warhammer FRPG dung wranglers.
Various anecdotes throughout this thread have indicated that individuals in their games they have actually been able to pull off this elusive combo and I see absolutely no reason to call b@&~!~%% on their experiences.
Perhaps they and their group are suffering shared hallucinations?
Now if people would be willing to say "Hey, that much deviation from the RAW means you might as well that you're playing Blue Rose or True 20" I think you'd probably find less opposition. However this thread seems to be full of absolutist comments that it can't be done in any meaningful way. Even one successful example is all that is required to show that sort of statement as false.
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So... if my group decides to play all fighters and rogues, and also decide to sell every magic item they find, they're not playing Pathfinder?
I never said that. In fact, that flies in direct opposition to what I said. That's going more towards 'tattered husk.'
Simply selling all your items is a ridiculous and outright stupid move (to an increasing degree with each passing level) without houseruling in something else that's actually useful to spend it on because gold in quantities above a thousand ultimately exists for only one reason within the rules; buying magic items. By just selling 'em all off, you've got a pile of useless money and you just blew up the power curve, a major assumption of the game. With everyone essentially being the exact same thing, there's very little the group can actually do within the rules (and note, DM fiat holds no bearing when discussing system), as other than the Rogue, they only get narrowly defined "hit thing with stick" or "throw stick at thing" abilities, with little else save a smattering of those even more underdeveloped skills.
The system loses its robustness as a game because it's pretty much not there, save for, "Make another attack roll."
What's more, because the power curve just broke hard due to lack of both magic and magic items, the GM cannot throw a level-appropriate encounter at them; the GM has to explicitly tailor encounter to the PCs in order to keep from killing them, rather than having a team that has the flexibility to adapt to circumstance; the 'adapt' and 'flexibility' features scarcely come without magic.
However, this is not a discussion about players who independently opt for nonmagical PCs. This is about how suitable the system is for running a low-magic campaign as a deliberate choice, a decision that is to be imposed on the players. To tell the players, "You as players must choose one of the game's only four nigh-identical nonmagic(ish) classes though one and only one of you may choose one of two kinda/sorta casting classes," or, "You may only be a caster if you take some ridiculously pathetic multiclass with the other half being one of the game's four nigh-identical nonmagic(ish) classes," and you're imposing that on the players, it's stopped being a robust and quality system and become a one-dimensional mess, a bad system that's lost all merit of the system in comparison to the alternatives.
There's absolutely no reason left to play Pathfinder in comparison to, say, Mutants & Masterminds, where you can just play at a low power level and you can still run with the majority of powers intact as nonmagical techniques. That Blast is an arrow, that stun effect is the warrior kneecapping a dude with a hammer, those paralysis, confusion, and nausea effects are three different kinds of poison, the mind control is spectacular diplomatic ability- it actually provides a flexible set of tools that can actually make three of a similar concept tremendously different so that three thieves aren't three carbon copies of "medium BAB, this exact skill list, and [level/2]d6 Sneak Attack" that low-magic Pathfinder is liable to degenerate into due to the simplicity and similarity of the game's very few nonmagic classes.
If you take the magic out of Pathfinder, you fast run out of Pathfinder.
There are even coherent reasons for doing so related to ease of learning a new system (I think most people would admit that a percentage of the gaming community likes learning one ruleset and isn't fond of having to learn multiple systems). Further by modifying one core book to suit your purposes you don't actually have to invest money in buying another d20 FRPG that has done the work for you (economics definitely plays a part in people's gaming decision). Sometimes DMs even take on the task because the challenge of morphing D&D into something different is a fun task.
M&M's just another d20 system, operating on mostly the same fundamental mechanics (meaning they don't need to be relearned). True20/Blue Rose is pretty much literally a simplified form of 3.5. Creating and learning a vast amount of houserules requires more learning than learning Blue Rose. If money's an issue, there are quality free games out there, from older editions of Ars Magica 4e (for some definitions of low-magic) to FATE/FUDGE, even free d20 variants that are far more suitable and coherent than Pathfinder with the magic ripped out.
It can be modified, sure, and some people may enjoy the modification process, but the more meaningful question would be, "Is Pathfinder a wise choice for low magic?" or "Is Pathfinder a wise suggestion for someone seeking to run low magic?" No. Absolutely not. Nothing about it makes it conducive to low-magic, and to get anything decent out of it, you have to mangle it and build half the system yourself. That makes it a bad system for low-magic.
After all, you can use Call of Cthulhu for a supers game if you apply enough houserules. It's still not a good base for supers and it's still not sage advice to suggest it to someone seeking to run supers.
So while the Pathfinder core rules is definitely geared towards high magic high fantasy (or whatever it is that D&D simulates) there is nothing that says "Thou shall play RAW and every attempt to change RAW is the act of a control freak DM!"
I never said nor implied that you can't/shouldn't have any houserules. However, if the objective is to run a low-magic campaign,the magnitude and volume of houserules required to make Pathfinder any good at it are such that it would be far simpler and far more effective to look at another, possibly similar system as it can yield superior results that better support the desired outcome with far less effort.
Various anecdotes throughout this thread have indicated that individuals in their games they have actually been able to pull off this elusive combo and I see absolutely no reason to call b~@&@%~@ on their experiences.
Perhaps they and their group are suffering shared hallucinations?
"I enjoy playing game X with my friends," and, "X is a well-developed game," are two entirely different things. You can have fun playing an awful game, particularly if you pay little heed to the system. That doesn't make the game any good.
Can someone have fun playing a low-magic Pathfinder game? Sure, but it's still a bad system for it.
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Can someone have fun playing a low-magic Pathfinder game? Sure, but it's still a bad system for it.
I wonder why so many of us have had success with it then, especially when we're using the actual rules to play? There's certainly an issue here, but I don't think its the ruless VV, but your rigid interpretation of how they must be used.
What's more, because the power curve just broke hard due to lack of both magic and magic items, the GM cannot throw a level-appropriate encounter at them; the GM has to explicitly tailor encounter to the PCs in order to keep from killing them, rather than having a team that has the flexibility to adapt to circumstance; the 'adapt' and 'flexibility' features scarcely come without magic.
I get the feeling your dependence on magic to solve all your issues in game is the problem here. This is a play style problem rather than a game problem Viletta. I could build a campaign all the way up to level 20 completely using a low magic campaign and the rules as written (maybe have to tweak healing though, more on that later). All I do is not use high magic creatures and create opponents using the same rules as the players get. Put character classes to other races, don't use DR/magic critters, remove spells that are too amazing for a low magic game (this would be an extensive list, but I imagine it would be negotiable by players and DM).
You must remember that when the magic gets toned down, the need for magic is toned down as well. The issue I've seen people have with this type of thing is they say low magic, but only apply that rule to the players. That's where things break. When it's universally applied then it works great, as attested to by a number of people in this thread and others in the time I've been on these boards.
I will agree with you on one aspect though, without an alternative method for healing, the game would be difficult. This is an area where the core rules have an issue adjusting to this type of campaign, and you would need to house rule an option instead. That is surprisingly easy depending on how you rationalise HP's in your campaign.
Hmm... this post has come of as a bit strong against you VV, didn't mean it that way. I find your arguments ususally good to read, even when I disagree with many of them.
Cheers
I get the feeling your dependence on magic to solve all your issues in game is the problem here. This is a play style problem rather than a game problem Viletta. I could build a campaign all the way up to level 20 completely using a low magic campaign and the rules as written (maybe have to tweak healing though, more on that later). All I do is not use high magic creatures and create opponents using the same rules as the players get. Put character classes to other races, don't use DR/magic critters, remove spells that are too amazing for a low magic game (this would be an extensive list, but I imagine it would be negotiable by players and DM).
You're missing the point. Yes, you can create a game where every creature in the universe is a Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue/Cavalier of a CR1/2-CR2 humanoid race or a mundane animal.
The problem becomes, is that game any good? Not really, no; the system is wasted and everything's the same, capable only of using an anemic array of one-dimensional options that the game's not designed to rely on exclusively. The creatures in the game become homogenized because the bulk of the customization has been cut out. It's that bleeding tatters.
Can you do it? Sure. Can you have fun with it? Sure, people have fun with RIFTS. Is it a good system? No. At that point, you're using ten times the mechanics you need to get a tremendously simplistic system when you'd be better off using a more fleshed out low-magic/generic game.
That's why I bring up Mutants & Masterminds; it can do low magic, too, but with M&M, the system remains intact and robust with means to make very real and meaningful differences between characters that would be nigh identical in nonmagic Pathfinder.
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http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/fudge.jpg
I forgot to mention this earlier, but I think is the only time I can say "I wholeheartedly agree with what Mistah Green said here."
Also, re: low magic campaigns. If you want to make magic more difficult, and you still want to allow casters, perhaps you could force a spellcraft roll to cast every single spell? The DC wouldn't have to be too high (10 + spell level might even be high enough) and then you add penalties for things like applying metamagic feats, bad situations, inclement weather, poor alignment of Venus with Capricorn... whatever.
No your missing the point. Just because to you it's no good or no fun does not make it a fact.
Now you're confusing quality for personal taste. I don't like steak, and I'd much sooner just have a hot dog, but the finest steak in the world is still of much higher quality than my hot dog, even if I prefer the hot dog.
In comparison to newer games, I'll freely admit that as much as I love it, 3.5 is a game of fairly low quality. It's internally inconsistent, wonky, splotchy, rigid, and has no idea what it's trying to be and do half the time. Put it next to 4e? 4e is far more coherently-designed, well-considered (keeping in mind this is relative to 3.5), balanced, and internally consistent. By any objective measure, 4e is the higher-quality product. However, it is not to my tastes. I still could not in good conscience suggest 3.5 as the superior product over 4e (or DC Adventures, or L5R, or Mouseguard, or...) without some fairly skewed and explicit point-by-point criteria. Objectivity requires that I maintain that distinction between my own tastes and inherent quality.
If you take Pathfinder and rip out all the magic, the quality goes down the tubes and it becomes a broken game of horrendous quality. If it's to your tastes, whatever, but it's not a quality game and it is not a toolbox that can be, in good conscience, recommended for low-magic play over the many, many alternatives.
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You're missing the point. Yes, you can create a game where every creature in the universe is a Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue/Cavalier of a CR1/2-CR2 humanoid race or a mundane animal.
The problem becomes, is that game any good? Not really, no; the system is wasted and everything's the same, capable only of using an anemic array of one-dimensional options that the game's not designed to rely on exclusively. The creatures in the game become homogenized because the bulk of the customization has been cut out. It's that bleeding tatters.
Now you're misquoting me completely. I never said magic classes weren't allowed. It's low magic, not no magic. In fact all of the iterations that people have suggested worked well from play experience (as opposed to just suggestions without play experience) have magic in them, just seriously low. You are taking a very narrow view of what low magic means and projecting it onto everyone elses game, then telling us we're having fun with a broken system. Careful what you argue against here, you're creating a narrow set of rules then telling everyone else this is what we're playing with.
Cheers
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For the OP,
just remember, if you lower magic for the players, lower magic for the opposition as well. Set a benchmark level of magic then apply it universally. Removing the effects of magic also removes the need for defenses against it so the whole christmas tree effect of higher levels goes away as does the need for it.
In this type of campaign, skills and feats become far more important for solving problems than magic normally would achieve (this happens in 4th edition now, and while some may not like the system, this part of it makes skills more useful than ever).
When you start the game up, drop a thread into the homebrew/houserule section of the boards to get some more feedback and rules as well. There are some guys in there who do this stuff really well and give great advice.
Cheers
I never said nor implied that you can't/shouldn't have any houserules. However, if the objective is to run a low-magic campaign,the magnitude and volume of houserules required to make Pathfinder any good at it are such that it would be far simpler and far more effective to look at another, possibly similar system as it can yield superior results that better support the desired outcome with far less effort.
I think E6 does it rather well in a 13 page document. It may not be your playstyle, but it seems to be a viable option for many of us.
What makes you think they fudged dice? I heard nothing of fudging dice rolls. I could see what they did working with ease. Hell in my home games I ignore WBL and a group is happy, happy I tell ya to have a single magic item by level 6.
I don't fudge the dice and have run very low magic settings with zero issue. But I dont sic ghosts on em if they have zero chance of dealing with em either.
Mistah Green and TriOmegaZero have both been active posters (on opposite sides of the argument, obviously) on another thread about the relative benefits/drawbacks of the occasional DM fudging of a roll vs. letting the dice fall as they may no matter what.
Mistah Green has taken the position that fudging die rolls is an a priori moral wrong, as it is essentially both lying and cheating. Given that TriOmegaZero is on the other side of this argument, M. Green is utilizing a picture of sweet and gooey chunks of delicious fudge to imply that any successes TriOmega may have had in running a "low-magic" game according to certain guidelines is actually due to TriOmega's proclivity for fudging dice rolls to keep said game from derailing.
Hope that clears things up.
Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood spider climb man
EDIT: I've been a bit unclear. Mistah Green and TriOmegaZero both also (obviously, if you've read this thread) have very different views on whether the Pathfinder ruleset can support a low-magic game, and how best to achieve that end. The purpose of M. Green's implication, in this case, is to invalidate TOZ's assertion that such a game is possible according to certain guidelines he lays out, by suggesting that the only reason such a game could possibly function without glaring mechanical breakdown is the regular fudging of inconvenient rolls of the dice.
I have no comment on the relative merits of either TOZ's guidelines or M. Green's critique and/or assumptions. I'm just here to provide exposition.
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critical rules necessary to play the game
No. Critical rules necessary to play the game don't include ANY magic items or spells. There are non-spellcasting classes. Arm them with mundane equipment. The game still works. Just because your limited imagination can't conceive playing the game like this, that doesn't mean that others can't enjoy it.
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Now you're misquoting me completely. I never said magic classes weren't allowed. It's low magic, not no magic. In fact all of the iterations that people have suggested worked well from play experience (as opposed to just suggestions without play experience) have magic in them, just seriously low. You are taking a very narrow view of what low magic means and projecting it onto everyone elses game, then telling us we're having fun with a broken system. Careful what you argue against here, you're creating a narrow set of rules then telling everyone else this is what we're playing with.
Except, again, there are four nonmagic classes in the game. Of those, who have the option to use magic as a class feature. That's four classes out of eighteen. To get low-magic, you still have to downplay 75%-90% of all base classes and half the content in the books. You're still removing the parts of the game that actually have meat to them, that are fleshed out, and leaving the most underdeveloped aspects (which other systems do far better) to take center stage.
And your repeated suggestion of lower-magic opposition only exacerbates the problem of homogeneity.
I think E6 does it rather well in a 13 page document. It may not be your playstyle, but it seems to be a viable option for many of us.
I already suggested E6. Repeatedly. However, it keeps being dismissed out of hand out of some bizarre need to keep twenty levels of character progression no matter how badly the game breaks in two.
And even in E6, 75-90% of base classes are still overt magic users.
Lists of spells and items are NOT "half the system." Maybe by page count, but not in terms of "critical rules necessary to play the game."
It's more than half the meat used to flesh out the game. Pathfinder uses magic for everything. If an effect need be done, odds are it's magic. You're assumed to have a massive fortune of magical swag. The game defines extreme low magic as halving that fortune (which is still massive) and halving market availability of magic items (which there's still a market for).
Take the magic out, and you're left with skin and bones.
No. Critical rules necessary to play the game don't include ANY magic items or spells. There are non-spellcasting classes. Arm them with mundane equipment. The game still works. Just because your limited imagination can't conceive playing the game like this, that doesn't mean that others can't enjoy it.
I never denied that there is a game. It is, however, a broken, incomplete tatter because magic fills many, many necessary functions and composes most of the fiddly bits of the system. Take that out, and you're left with the underdeveloped skill system and a lot of full attacks repeated ad infinitum (with maybe one PC who repeats trip or grapple ad infinitum). That's a one-dimensional, incomplete game that's horribly clunky for what little it does.
In fact, the bulk of what's left are incidentals and the base mechanics of d20, which others have already taken and actually fitted to be good at low magic, to actually have meat on their bones and flexibility and meaningful customization even without magic.
This is not a matter of imagination. This is a matter of performance. The game sucks without magic. Vision and imagination cannot change the quality of a game. Can you enjoy a bad game? I've already said yes repeatedly. However, it's still a bad game and you'd be better served finding one that doesn't suck for your purposes.
I believe that "but your only using 10% percent of the game potential" is an irrelevant statement in this case.
The relevant question is whether that 10% allows you to play an enjoyable game with a system that is solid enough to support proper gameplay.
IMO, it is possible with some minor adjustments, but adjustments nonetheless. The first and foremost being departure from playing the game as intended by RaW. I concede that much to Viletta.
E6 is a way of using 10% of the system (which also takes some adjustments from the DM), but it's not the ONLY way. There are other ways that are just as valid and fulfilling, depending on the wanted game experience.
So "Low Magic... is it possible?"
I believe the answer is "yes". Other systems may give similar results, worst results or better results. It doesn't take anything from the fact that low-magic IS achievable with Pathfinder RPG IF the DM and the players are ready to make those adjustments.
'findel
I have found that low magic setting works fine as long as everyone (GM and players) is on board with that idea.
I don't think you even need to eliminate or even seriously limit any of the casting classes, unless you are going for a slim-to-no magic game.
I would just limit or at least delay the "Christmas tree" items (+1 cloaks, rings, extra weapons, etc.) Also, make wands, scrolls, spellbooks, etc. much more rare.
I would also limit a few select spells. Teleport is probably at the top of the list, and spells that summon or conjure creatures will obviously be more powerful if the PCs are less powerful.
Finally, just don't overload the game with DR/magic creatures, or other similar magic-required situations, and things should be fine. After around 10-12 level other steps may need to be taken depending on party make-up and setting, but I think that needs to happen to some degree in every game.
I skimmed over the thread and didn't see it. I'd recommend Iron Heroes d20 if you want to go for a low-low magic but action movie feel. Its not a good intro ruleset but with a group of veteran players it can be fun.
I saw E6 mentioned a few times along the thread. I second it. In fact, I'm using it on the campaign I'm about to start. I also suggest enforcing a limitation on the classic spellcasters. Pathfinder Advancer Guide's classes (Oracle and Inquisitor especially) have a low-magic, gritty feel to them that might help replace the classics. Same goes to some of the variant classes (like replacing the Wizard and Sorcerer for the Archivist, a variant Bard). You could still have powerful NPCs in these classes.
Also, I suggest not removing all the powerful creatures that would be impossible to beat due to RD and SR. In fact, make defeating them part of the adventure. How do the party defeat the Stone Golem? Maybe there are clues to a weak spot somewhere inside the tomb it is protecting. But the party will have to locate the correct text and translate it. An interesting feat, especially if they need to go through a few traps and translate it as the Stone Golem chases the party.
Perhaps the best low-magic d20 ogl product i have seen(and used) is
a system called IRON HEROES by a company called FIERY DRAGON, i got thier game pdf some years ago(its 3.0 or 3.5) but it is a very effective system based around some unique class designs and an exellent magic system , all magic items carry drawbacks, ie addiction to potions, backfiring scrolls, swords which drain ability scores the longer you possess them etc, also someone mentioned MIDNIGHT earlier in this thread, created by BERSERKER, "against the shadows" is the players primer. midnight is an exellent campaign that also follows a altered magic system that seems effective, check these products out and i hope you get some inspiration as i did :)
Yes, E6 is an interesting way of dealing with the problems of truly unrealistic gaming that comes with level based systems, but it would be a shame to basically ignore a large percentage of game content to try and reach some sort of equilibrium. In a way returning to d&d basic set(red book) and pretending the rest of the game didnt follow, game balance and realism quotent will always be a measure of DM skill more so than the system itself (a poor workman blames his tools)